PHOTOGRAPHING THE CIVIL WAR

EXTRAORDINARY
as the fact seems, the American Civil War is the first great war of
which we have an adequate history in photographs: that is to say, this
is the first conflict of "great magnitude"* in the world's history
that can be really "illustrated," with a pictorial record which is
indisputably authentic, vividly illuminating, and the final evidence in
any question of detail.

* There have been, of course, only two
wars of this description in the 1800's: the Franco-Prussian War was, for
some reason, not followed by camera men; and the marvelously expert
photographers who flocked to the struggles between Russia and Japan were
not given any chance by the Japanese authorities to make anything like
an adequate record.

Here is a much more important historical
fact than the casual reader realizes. The earliest records we have of
the human race are purely pictorial. History, even of the most shadowy
and legendary sort, goes back hardly more than ten thousand years. But
in recent years there have been recovered in certain caves of France
scratched and carved bone weapons and rough wall-paintings which tell us
some dramatic events in the lives of men who lived probably a hundred
thousand years before the earliest of those seven strata of ancient
Troy, which indefatigable archeologists have exposed to the wondering
gaze of the modern world. The picture came long before the written
record; nearly all our knowledge of ancient Babylonia and Assyria is
gleaned from the details left by some picturemaker. And it is still
infinitely more effective an appeal. How impossible it is for the
average person to get any clear idea of the great struggles which
altered the destinies of nations and which occupy so large a portion of
world history! How can a man today really understand the siege of Troy,
the battles of Thermopylae or Salamis, Hannibal's crossing of the Alps,
the famous fight at Tours when Charles "the Hammer" checked the
Saracens, the Norman conquest of England, the Hundred Years' or Thirty
Years' Wars, even our own seven-year struggle for liberty, without any
firsthand picture-aids to start the imagination? Take the comparatively
modern Napoleonic wars where, moreover, there is an exceptional wealth
of paintings, drawings, prints, and lithographs by contemporary men: in
most cases the effect is simply one of keen disappointment at the
painfully evident fact that most of these worthy artists never saw a
battle or a camp.

Photography at the Siege of Petersburg

So
the statement that there have been gathered together thousands of
photographs of scenes on land and water during those momentous years of
1861 to 1865 means that for our generation and all succeeding ones, the
Civil War is on a basis different from all others, is practically an
open book to old and young. For when man achieved the photograph he took
almost as important a step forward as when he discovered how to make
fire: he made scenes and events and personalities immortal. The greatest
literary genius might write a volume without giving you so intimate a
comprehension of the struggle before Petersburg as do these exact
records, made by adventurous cameramen under incredible difficulties,
and holding calmly before your eyes the very Reality itself.

Cooper's Battery

To apply this pictorial principle, let us
look at one remarkable photograph, Cooper's Battery in front of the
Avery house, during the siege of
Petersburg, of which we have, by a lucky chance, an account from one
of the men in the scene. The lifelikeness of the picture is beyond
praise: one cannot help living through this tense moment with these men
of long ago, and one's eyes instinctively follow their fixed gaze toward
the lines of the foe. This picture was shown to Lieutenant James A.
Gardner (of Battery B, First Pennsylvania Light Artillery), who
immediately named half a dozen of the figures, adding details of the
most intimate interest:

I am, even at this late day, able to pick
out and recognize a very large number of the members of our battery, as
shown in this photograph. Our battery (familiarly known as Cooper's
Battery) belonged to the Fifth Corps, then commanded by Gen. G. K.
Warren.

Our corps arrived in front of Petersburg
on June 17, 1864, was put into position on the evening of that day, and
engaged the Confederate batteries on their line near the Avery house.
The enemy at that time was commanded by
General Beauregard. That night the enemy fell back to their third
line, which then occupied the ridge which you see to the right and
front, along where you will notice the chimney (the houses had been
burnt down). On the night of the 18th we threw up the lunettes in front
of our guns. This position was occupied by us until possibly about the
23d or 24th of June, when we were taken further to the left. The
position shown in the picture is about six hundred and fifty yards in
front, and to the right of the Avery house, and at or near this point
was built a permanent fort or battery, which was used continuously
during the entire siege of Petersburg.

While occupying this position,
Mr. Brady took the photographs, copies
of which you have sent me. The photographs were taken in the forenoon of
June 21, 1864. I know myself, merely from the position that I occupied
at that time, as gunner. After that, I served as sergeant, first
sergeant, and first lieutenant, holding the latter position at the close
of the war. All the officers shown in this picture are dead.

The movement in which we were engaged was
the advance of the Army of the Potomac upon Petersburg, being the
beginning of operations in front of that city. On June 18th the division
of the Confederates which was opposite us was that of Gen. Bushrod R.
Johnson; but as the Army of Northern Virginia, under
General Lee, began
arriving on the evening of June 18th, it would be impossible for me to
say who occupied the enemy's lines after that. The enemy's position,
which was along on the ridge to the front, in the picture, where you see
the chimney, afterward became the main line of the Union army. Our
lines were advanced to that point, and at or about where you see the
chimney standing, Fort Morton of the Union line was constructed, and a
little farther to the right was Fort Stedman, on the same ridge; and
about where the battery now stands, as shown in the picture, was a small
fort or works erected, known as Battery Seventeen.

When
engaged in action, our men exhibited the same coolness that is shown in
the picture—that is, while loading our guns. If the enemy is engaging
us, as soon as each gun is loaded the cannoneers drop to the ground and
protect themselves as best they can, except the gunners and the
officers, who are expected to be always on the lookout. The gunners are
the corporals who sight and direct the firing of the guns.

In the photograph you will notice a
person (in civilian's clothes). This is Mr. Brady or his assistant, but
I think it is Mr. Brady himself.

It is now almost forty-seven years since
the photographs were taken, yet I am able to designate at least fifteen
persons of our battery, and point them out. I should have said that Mr.
Brady took picture No. 1 from a point a little to the left, and front,
of our battery; and the second one was taken a little to the rear, and
left, of the battery. Petersburg lay immediately over the ridge in the
front, right over past the man whom you see sitting there so leisurely
on the earthworks thrown up.

Mathew Brady at the Battle of Bull Run

A notice in Humphrey's Journal in 1861
describes vividly the records of the flight after
Bull Run secured by
the indefatigable Brady. Unfortunately the unique one in which the
reviewer identified "Bull Run" Russell in reverse action is lost to
the world. But we have the portrait of Brady himself three days later in
his famous linen duster, as he returned to Washington. His story comes
from one who had it from his own lips :

He [Brady] had watched the ebb and flow
of the battle on that Sunday morning in July, 1861, and seen now the
success of the green Federal troops under General McDowell in the field,
and now the stubborn defense of the green troops under that General
Jackson who thereby earned the sobriquet of "Stonewall." At last
Johnston, who with Beauregard and Jackson, was a Confederate commander,
strengthened by reinforcements, descended upon the rear of the Union
troops and drove them into a retreat which rapidly turned to a rout.

The plucky photographer was forced along
with the rest; and as night fell he lost his way in the thick woods
which were not far from the little stream that gave the battle its name.
He was clad in the linen duster which was a familiar sight to those who
saw him taking his pictures during that campaign, and was by no means
prepared for a night in the open. He was unarmed as well, and had
nothing with which to defend himself from any of the victorious
Confederates who might happen his way, until one of the famous company
of "Fire Zouaves, of the Union forces, gave him succor in the shape of a
broadsword. This he strapped about his waist, and it was still there
when he finally made his way to Washington three days later. He was a
sight to behold after his wanderings, but he had come through unscathed
as it was his fate to do so frequently afterwards.

Mathew Brady at Fredericksburg

Instances might be multiplied
indefinitely, but here is one more evidence of the quality of this
pictorial record. The same narrator had from Brady a tale of a picture
made a year and a half later, at the battle of Fredericksburg. He says:

Burnside, then in command of the Army of the Potomac, was
preparing to cross the Rappahannock, and Longstreet and Jackson,
commanding the Confederate forces, were fortifying the hills back of the
right bank of that river. Brady, desiring as usual to be in the thick of
things, undertook to make some pictures from the left bank. He placed
cameras in position and got his men to work, but suddenly found himself
taking a part very different from that of a non-combatant. In the bright
sunshine his bulky cameras gleamed like guns, and the Confederate
marksmen thought that a battery was being placed in position. They
promptly opened fire, and Brady found himself the target for a good many
bullets. It was only his phenomenal good luck that allowed him to escape
without injury either to himself and men or to his apparatus.

Mathew Brady's Photograph of Fredericksburg . . . Taken
Under Fire

It is clearly worth while to study for a
few moments this man Brady, who was so ready to risk his life for the
idea by which he was obsessed. While the war soon developed far beyond
what he or any other one man could possibly have compassed, so that he
is probably directly responsible for only a fraction of the whole vast
collection of pictures on this site, he may fairly be said to have
fathered the movement; and his daring and success undoubtedly stimulated
and inspired the small army of men all over the war-region, whose
unrelated work has been laboriously gathered together.

Mathew Brady Biography

Matthew B. Brady was born at Cork,
Ireland (not in New Hampshire, as is generally stated) about 1823.
Arriving in New York as a boy, he got a job in the great establishment
of A. T. Stewart, first of the merchant princes of that day. The
youngster's good qualities were so conspicuous that his large-minded
employer made it possible for him to take a trip abroad at the age of
fifteen, under the charge of S. F. B. Morse, who was then laboring at
his epoch-making development of the
telegraph.

Naturally enough, this scientist took his
young companion to the laboratory of the already famous Daguerre, whose
arduous experiments in making pictures by sunlight were just approaching
fruition; and the wonderful discovery which young Brady's receptive eyes
then beheld was destined to determine his whole life-work.

For that very year (1839) Daguerre made
his "daguerreotype " known to the world; and Brady's keen interest was
intensified when, in 1840, on his own side of the ocean, Professor
Draper produced the first photographic portrait the world had yet seen,
a likeness of his sister, which required the amazingly short exposure of
only ninety seconds!

Brady's natural business-sense and his
mercantile training showed him the chance for a career which this new
invention opened, and it was but a short time before he had a gallery on
Broadway and was well launched upon the new trade of furnishing
daguerreotype portraits to all comers. He was successful from the start;
in 1851 his work took a prize at the London World's Fair; about the same
time he opened an office in Washington; in the fifties he brought over
Alexander Gardner, an expert in the new revolutionary
wet-plate process,
which gave a negative furnishing many prints instead of one unduplicatable original; and in the twenty years between his start and
the Civil War he became the fashionable photographer of his day—as is
evidenced not only by the superb collection of notable people whose
portraits he gathered together, but by Brete Harte's classic verse (from
"Her Letter"):

Well, yes—if you saw us out driving Each
day in the Park, four-in-hand—If you saw poor dear mamma contriving To
look supernaturally grand,—If you saw papa's picture, as taken By Brady,
and tinted at that,—You'd never suspect he sold bacon And flour at
Poverty Flat.

Upon this sunny period of prosperity the
Civil War broke in 1861. Brady had made portraits of scores of the men
who leaped into still greater prominence as leaders in the terrible
struggle, and his vigorous enthusiasm saw in this fierce drama an
opportunity to win ever brighter laurels. His energy and his
acquaintance with men in authority overcame every obstacle, and he
succeeded in interesting
President Lincoln, Secretary Stanton, General
Grant, and Allan Pinkerton to such an extent that he obtained the
protection of the Secret Service, and permits to make photographs at the
front. Everything had to be done at his own expense, but with entire
confidence he equipped his men, and set out himself as well, giving
instructions to guard against breakage by making two negatives of
everything, and infusing into all his own ambition to astonish the world
by this unheardof feat.

The need for such permits appears in a "home letter " from E. T. Whitney, a war photographer whose negatives,
unfortunately, have been destroyed. This letter, dated March 13. 1862.
states that the day before "all photographing has been stopped by
general orders from headquarters." Owing to ignorance of this order on
the part of the guard at the bridge, Whitney was allowed to reach the
Army of the Potomac, where he made application to General McClellan for
a special pass.

We shall get some more glimpses presently
of these adventurous souls in action. But, as already hinted,
extraordinary as were the results of Brady's impetuous vigor, he was but
one of many in the great work of picturing the war. Three-fourths of the
scenes with the Army of the Potomac were made by Gardner. Thomas G.
Roche was an indefatigable worker in the armies' train. Captain A. J.
Russell, detached as official cameraman for the War Department,
obtained many invaluable pictures illustrating the military railroading
and construction work of the Army of the Potomac, which were hurried
straightway to Secretary Stanton at Washington.
Sam A. Cooley was
attached to the Tenth Army Corps, and recorded the happenings around
Savannah, Fort McAllister, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Beaufort, and
Charleston during the bombardment; George M. Barnard, under the
supervision of General O. M. Poe (then Captain in the Engineer Corps) ,
did yeoman's service around Atlanta.

S. R. Siebert was very busy indeed at
Charleston in 1865. Cook of Charleston, Edwards of New Orleans, and
other unknown men on the Confederate side, working under even greater
difficulties (Cook, for instance, had to secure his chemicals from
Anthony in New York—who also supplied Brady —and smuggle them through),
did their part in the vast labor; and many another unknown, including
the makers of the little cartes de visite, contributed to the panorama
which today unfolds itself before the reader.

A. D. Lytle . . . Confederate Spy Photographer

One most interesting cameraman of unique
kind was A. D. Lytle, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who made a series of
views (covering three years and several campaigns—and consequently
scattered through the present work) for the specific use of the
Confederate Secret Service. That is to say, he was a "camera spy," and
a good one, too. He secured his chemicals from the same great firm of
Anthony & Co., in New York, but instead of running the
blockade with
them, they were supplied on "orders to trade." In many cases, for
instance, the necessary iodides and bromides masqueraded as quinine.*
Mr. Lytle's son relates that his father used to signal with flag and
lantern from the observation tower on the top of the ruins of the Baton
Rouge capitol to Scott's Bluff, whence the messages were relayed to the
Confederates near New Orleans; but he found this provided such a
tempting target for the Federal sharpshooters that he discontinued the
practice.

*This statement is historically confirmed. Professor Walter L.
Fleming, of the University of Louisiana, states he has seen many such
orders-to-trade, signed by President Lincoln, but not countersigned by
Secretary Stanton.

There are contemporary comments on the
first crop of war photographs which confirm several points already made.
Humphrey's Journal in October, 1861, contained the following :

PHOTOGRAPHS OF WAR SERIES

Among the portraits in Brady's selection,
spoken of in our last number, are those of many leading generals and
colonels—McClellan, McDowell, Heintzelman, Burnside, Wood, Corcoran,
Slocum, and others. Of the larger groups, the most effective are those
of the army passing through Fairfax village, the battery of the 1st
Rhode Island regiment at Camp Sprague, the 71st Regiment [New York]
formed in hollow square at the Navy Yard, the Engineer Corps of the New
York Twelfth at Camp Anderson, Zouaves on the lookout from the belfry of
Fairfax Court House, etc., etc.

Mr. Brady intends to take other
photographic scenes of the localities of our army and of battle-scenes,
and his collection will undoubtedly prove to be the most interesting
ever yet exhibited. But why should he monopolize this department? We
have plenty of other artists as good as he is. What a field would there
be for Anthony's instantaneous views and for stereoscopic pictures. Let
other artists exhibit a little of Mr. Brady's enterprise and furnish the
public with more views. There are numerous photographers close by the
stirring scenes which are being daily enacted, and now is the time for
them to distinguish themselves.

We have seen how far Brady came from "monopolizing " the field. And surely the sum total of achievement is
triumphant enough to share among all who had any hand in it.

And now let us try to get some idea of
the problem which confronted these enthusiasts, and see how they tackled
it.

Imagine what it must have meant even to
get to the scene of action—with cumbersome tent and apparatus, and a
couple of hundred glass plates whose breakage meant failure; over
unspeakable back-country roads or no roads at all; with the continual
chance of being picked off by some scouting sharpshooter or captured
through some shift of the armies.

The first sight of the queer-looking
wagon caused amazement, speculation, derision. "What is it? " became so
inevitable a greeting that to this day if one asks a group of soldiers
about war-photographs, they will exclaim simultaneously, "Oh, yes, the
'what-is-it' wagon! " It became a familiar sight, yet the novelty of
its awkward mystery never quite wore off.

Wet Plate Photography

Having arrived, and having faced the real
perils generally attendant upon reaching the scenes of keenest interest,
our camera adventurer was but through the overture of his troubles. The
most advanced photography of that day was the
wet-plate method, by which
the plates had to be coated in the dark (which meant in this case
carrying everywhere a smothery, light-proof tent), exposed within five
minutes, and developed within five minutes more! For the benefit of
amateur members of the craft here are some notes from the veteran
photographer, Mr. George G. Rockwood:

First, all the plain glass plates in
various sizes, usually 8 x 10, had to be carefully cleaned and carried
in dust-proof boxes. When ready for action, the plate was carefully
coated with "collodion," which carried in solution the "excitants
"—bromide and iodide of potassium, or ammonia, or cadmium. Collodion is
made by the solution of gun-cotton in about equal parts of sulphuric
ether and 95° proof alcohol. The salts above mentioned are then added,
making the collodion a vehicle for obtaining the sensitive surface on
the glass plate. The coating of plates was a delicate operation even in
the ordinary well-organized studio. After coating the plate with
collodion and letting the ether and alcohol evaporate to just the right
degree of "stickiness," it was lowered carefully into a deep "bath
holder" which contained a solution of nitrate of silver about 60° for
quick field-work. This operation created the sensitive condition of the
plate, and had to be done in total darkness except a subdued yellow
light. When properly coated (from three to five minutes) the plate was
put into a "slide" or "holder" and exposed to the action of the
light in the camera. When exposed, it was returned to the dark-room and
developed.

Photography Wagons

Mr. Rockwood also knew all about Brady's
photography wagon, having had a similar contrivance made for himself before the war,
for taking pictures in the country. He "used an ordinary delivery wagon
of the period, and had a strong
step attached at the rear and below the level of the wagon floor. A door
was put on at the back, carefully hung so as to be lightproof. The
door, you understand, came down over the step which was boxed in at the
sides, making it a sort of well within the body of the wagon rather than
a true step.

The work of coating or sensitizing the
plates and that of developing them was done from this well, in which
there was just room enough to work. As the operator stood there the
collodion was within reach of his right hand, in a special receptacle.
On his left also was the holder of one of the baths. The chief
developing bath was in front, with the tanks of various liquids stored
in front of it again, and the space between it and the floor filled with
plates.

With such a wagon on a larger scale,
large enough for men to sleep in front of the
darkroom part, the
phenomenal pictures of Brady were made possible. Brady risked his life
many a time in order not to separate from this cumbrous piece of
impedimenta.

On exceptional occasions in very cold
weather the life of a wet plate might be extended to nearly an hour on
either side of the exposure, the coating or the development side, but
ordinarily the work had to be done within a very few minutes, and every
minute of delay resulted in loss of brilliancy and depth in the
negative."

Some vivid glimpses of the
war-photographers' troubles come also from Mr. J. Pitcher Spencer, who
knew the work intimately:

We worked long with one of the foremost
of Brady's men, and here let me doff my hat to the name of M. B. Brady
few today are worthy to carry his camera case, even as far as ability
from the photographic standpoint goes. I was, in common with the " Cape Codders," following the ocean from 1859 to 1864; I was only home a few
months -1862–63—and even then from our boys who came home invalided we
heard of that grand picture-maker Brady, as they called him.

When I made some views (with the only
apparatus then known, the "wet plate"), there came a large realization
of some of the immense difficulties surmounted by those who made
war-pictures. When you realize that the most sensitive of all the list
of chemicals are requisite to make collodion, which must coat every
plate, and that the very slightest breath might carry enough "poison"
across the plate being coated to make it produce a blank spot instead of
some much desired effect, you may perhaps have a faint idea of the care
requisite to produce a picture. Moreover, it took unceasing care to keep
every bit of the apparatus, as well as each and every chemical, free
from any possible contamination which might affect the picture. Often a
breath of wind, no matter how gentle, spoiled the whole affair.

Often, just as some fine result looked
certain, a hot streak of air would not only spoil the plate, but put the
instrument out of commission, by curling some part of it out of shape.
In face of these, and hundreds of minor discouragements, the men imbued
with vim and force-fullness by the "Only Brady" kept right along and
today the world can enjoy these wonderful views as a result.

Still further details come from an old
soldier and photographic expert, Mr. F. M. Rood:

The plate "flowed" with
collodion was
dipped at once in a bath of nitrate of silver, in water also iodized,
remained there in darkness three to five minutes; still in darkness, it
was taken out, drained, put in the dark-holder, exposed, and developed
in the dark-tent at once. The time between flowing the collodion and
developing should not exceed eight or ten minutes. The developer was sulphate of iron solution and acetic acid, after which came a slight
washing and fixing (to remove the surplus silver) with solution of
cyanide of potassium; and then a final washing, drying, and varnishing.
The surface (wet or dry), unlike a dry plate, could not be touched. I
was all through the war from 1861-65, in the Ninety-third New York
regiment, whose pictures you have given. I recognized quite a number of
the old comrades. You have also in your collection a negative of each
company of that regiment.

Fortunately the picture men occasionally
immortalized each other as well as the combatants, so that we have a
number of intimate glimpses of their life and methods. In one the wagon,
chemicals and camera are in the very trenches at Atlanta, and they tell
more than pages of description. But, naturally, they cannot show the
arduous labor, the narrow escapes, the omnipresent obstacles which could
be overcome only by the keenest ardor and determination. The epic of the
war-photographer is still to be written. It would compare favorably with
the story of many battles. And it does not require much imagination,
after viewing the results obtained in the face of such conditions, to
get a fair measure of these indomitable workers.

Mathew Brady dies Poor and Forgotten

The story of the way in which these
pictures have been rescued from obscurity is almost as romantic a tale
as that of their making. The net result of Brady's efforts was a
collection of over seven thousand pictures (two negatives of each in
most cases); and the expenditure involved, estimated at $100,000, ruined
him. One set, after undergoing the most extraordinary vicissitudes,
finally passed into the Government's possession, where it is now held
with a prohibition against its use for commercial purposes. The 25,000
tardily voted to Mr. Brady by Congress did not retrieve his financial
fortunes, and he died in the nineties, in a New York hospital, poor and
forgotten, save by a few old-time friends.

Brady's own negatives passed in the
seventies into the possession of Anthony, in default of payment of his
bills for photographic supplies. They were kicked about from pillar to
post for ten years, until John C. Taylor found them in an attic and
bought them; from this they became the back-bone of the Ordway-Rand
collection; and in 1895 Brady himself had no idea what had become of
them. Many were broken, lost, or destroyed by fire. After passing to
various other owners, they were discovered and appreciated by Edward
Bailey Eaton, of Hartford, Connecticut, who created the immediate train
of events that led to their importance as the nucleus of a collection of
many thousand pictures gathered from all over the country to furnish the
material for this work.

From all sorts of sources, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, from Maine to the Gulf, these hidden treasures
have been drawn. Historical societies, Government and State bureaus,
librarians, private collectors, military and patriotic organizations,
old soldiers and their families have recollected, upon earnest
insistence, that they did have such things or once knew of them. Singly
and in groups they have come from walls, out of archives, safes, old
garrets, often seeing the light of day for the first time in a
generation, to join together once more in a pictorial army which daily
grew more irresistible as the new arrivals augmented, supplemented, and
explained. The superb result is here spread forth and illuminated for
posterity.

Apart from all the above considerations,
these invaluable pictures are well worth attention from the standpoint
of pictorial art. We talk a great deal nowadays about the astonishing
advances of modern art-photography; and it is quite true that patient
investigators have immeasurably increased the range and flexibility of
camera methods and results. We now manipulate negatives and print to
produce any sort of effect; we print in tint or color, omitting or
adding- what we wish; numberless men of artistic capacity are daily
"showing how to transmit personal feeling through the intricacies of the
mechanical process. But it is just as true as when the cave-man
scratched on a bone his recollections of mammoth and reindeer, that the
artist will produce work that moves the beholder, no matter how crude
may be his implements. Clearly there were artists among these Civil War
photographers.

Probably this was caused by natural
selection. It took ardor and zest for this particular thing above all
others to keep a man at it in face of the hardships and disheartening
handicaps. In any case, the work speaks for itself. Over and over one is
thrilled by a sympathetic realization that the vanished man who pointed
the camera at some particular scene, must have felt precisely the same
pleasure in a telling composition of landscape, in a lifelike grouping,
in a dramatic glimpse of a battery in action, in a genre study of a
wounded soldier watched over by a comrade—that we feel to-day and that
some seeing eye will respond to generations in the future. This is the
true immortality of art. And when the emotions thus aroused center about
a struggle which determined the destiny of a great nation, the picture
that arouses them takes its proper place as an important factor in that
heritage of the past which gives us today increased stature over all
past ages, just because we add all their experience to our own.